Page 18 of Wilder Love
“You lied to me.”Again.
“I didn’t want you to lose sleep—”
“Why were you out riding so late?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
She gnawed on her bottom lip and shrugged one shoulder.
“Why couldn’t you sleep?” I wrapped my hands around her wrists and tugged her closer, so she was standing between my legs. Then I remembered that she was only sixteen and I was commando in gray sweatpants that left little to the imagination. I released her and scrubbed my hands over my face, stifling a groan.
She sank down onto the step next to me and leaned her shoulder against mine. I inhaled her scent—green apples and summer rain.
“I hate goodbyes, you know? Goodbye is the saddest word in the English language.”
“Where’s the good in goodbye?”
“Exactly. So, I’ll see you soon. And I won’t worry about you or think about you at all. You won’t even cross my mind.”
“Ditto. Will you surf without me?”
“You’ll be with me in spirit. Like a drill sergeant barking orders. Paddle harder. Find your center. Blah, blah, blah.”
I laughed, and we sat in silence for a while. A comfortable silence. Remy never felt the need to rush in and fill up the empty space. I liked that about her.
“What’s it like? Riding the big waves?” she asked moments later.
“It’s like… facing your own mortality.” I hadn’t meant to say that but with Remy, I don’t know, I always voiced my innermost thoughts. Told her the things I never told anyone. “It really makes you think about life and death. And I think that’s one of the reasons I chase those waves… and maybe it’s the same for most surfers. So many people are just surviving, not really living, you know? And riding a big wave makes you feel so alive. It’s an incredible experience. I don’t know how to describe it.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I know what you mean. There’s a big difference between living and surviving.”
We contemplated that for a few minutes and then, without saying another word, she stood up and she climbed the stairs to her apartment. It was something I’d come to learn about her. Remy would always try to be the first to leave. She was scared of being left behind.
7
Remy
“Fuck,” Dylan muttered when Mom strutted into the kitchen in a skirt that barely covered her ass and a top with a plunging neckline. I stared at the cleavage on display and the red stilettos on her feet. The slash of red lipstick and the fake lashes. Mom looked like a hooker because, let’s face it, she was. I poured her coffee into a travel mug and pressed it into her hand.
“Mom, you can’t wear that to our school,” I told her, watching our fresh start vanish before my eyes. The first two weeks of school had gone okay. No major drama or trouble. That was about to change, I could feel it. Whenever Mom got involved, things went from sugar to shit real fast.
She ignored me and looked at Dylan. “What’s his name again?”
“You’re not meeting him,” Dylan said, jamming his empty cereal bowl in the dishwasher and slamming it shut. “So, it doesn’t fucking matter what his name is.”
“He’s your guidance counselor, baby. He wants to meet me. Of course, it matters. My boy is gifted. Imagine that.”
It was true. Dylan was smart, and Costa del Rey had noticed what other schools had overlooked. Kids like us slipped through the cracks all the time. And guys like Dylan—he was bad news wrapped in a pretty package. Stumbling out of the girls’ locker room, a cheerleader trailing behind with mussed hair and kiss-bruised lips. Smoking under the football stadium bleachers. In the middle of fights in the parking lot. That was where you could usually find Dylan. But he knew better than to push the limits too far. We couldn’t afford to have the school administration nosing into our business.
Before Mom shooed us out the door, I grabbed a coat from her closet. A trench coat. Which would look ridiculous. SoCal weather never seemed to change—warm, desert-dry, with eternal sunshine even on the cloudy days. But if she would agree to wear the coat, it would be an improvement over her current ensemble.
Instead of getting into Mom’s beat-up old Honda, Dylan kept going, right past the parking lot, striding up the street to God knows where. We usually rode our bikes to school, so I had no idea where he was going.
“Dylan St. Clair, you get back here right this minute,” Mom screamed. Every now and then, at the most inopportune moments, Mom acted like a mother. “I will hunt you down and youwillget in this car.”
My gaze swung across the street. Somehow, I knew, justknew, that this display would not go unwitnessed. Why wasn’t Shane out surfing already? He was waxing a board inside the garage, and the door was open. He wasn’t alone either. Travis was staring at the spectacle that was my mother.
